Posts by Atrophic Cerebrum

NSA’s top hacking boss explains how to protect your network from his attack squads

Re: Slightly moot?

Possibly, but if there was I wasn't privy to it and why would a fairly small yet very influential enterprise bother with the expense of building day to day hammers?

Slightly moot?

I've worked on very confidential projects where the main software tools used are all cloud based with no other secure versions available for use on airgaps, thankfully these projects were not at the competition stage whereby UK companies bidding against US companies would have to worry about economic espionage. However, if they were, regardless of any kind of special relationship what possible guarantees would a non US company have that their intellectual copyright is secure in these circumstances? Especially as the the software providers no longer offer non cloud based versions of the software. When working at a smaller scale, in what way could a UK based startup for instance sign an NDA for a client?

30 years on from Challenger, NASA remembers the fallen

Damn...

I'm old and young at the same time, I remember John Craven on Newsround and this. May we reflect upon these people and may they rest in peace. Columbian Endeavour for the Discovery of Atlantis.

Earth wobbles on axis as Google rebrands

It doesn't bother me that much, what does is the backlash against Skeudomorphism as a design rationale.

For instance, the google earth icon should just be a real time image of what the product/service is, it'd look far better than some strange representation of the planet, you'd get a real time image of the earth complete with terminator to roughly know what time it is. If the user needs it to use less bandwidth then limit the realtime Skeudomorphic representation to update only over a wi-fi connection. For me that would be a good design and create a strong connection between icon and product.

Adobe kills Creative Suite – all future features online only

The problem with Creative Cloud is...

I was using it for my work and had a deadline looming I needed to deliver some documents to a client urgently. The Creative Cloud licensing server rufused to open any programmes and my files after a few attempts (about 15) I had to go and use a friends copy to export IDML files and then open them on CS5 to get the work done on my backup system, this wasted about 4 hours of billable time. I was not impressed by the reliability of software that's been really solid for getting work done in the past. Once I was back working in CS5 I realised that it is faster and more reliable than CS6 two things that matter to me. The help system for the new tools like edge is terrible, there's hardly any documentation at all.

I looked at the new features in CS7 and to be honest I'm really dissapointed that really useful features were not implemented - x-ref stylesheets and content like 3D, CAD and web design have been doing for years I thought was a no brainer to implement in InDesign, I was expecting InDesign and Dreamweaver to be merged into the same programme. Doing that alone would be worth the upgrade.

Behance and QR code generators as major features? WTF?

Re: Somebody PLEASE!!!!

I'll help.

Re: Give me your money!

The software is a lot slower on the same hardware comparing CS6 to CS5, I'd imagine the new version will be slower still and probably drop support for OSX 10.6.8 (the last decent production version of OSX). InDesign is the best application in the suite and if they have any sense it will include externally referenced style sheets like CSS.

Any reg readers out there who are developing alternatives please reply in this thread if you need any professional users of design tools to help make new ones suitable for professional work I'd gladly help. There's no way I can professionally advise my clients to purchase business tools that are at the mercy of an internet connection and regular updates that don't play with existing tools that get the work done.

Stop excluding vulnerable Brits from digital agenda - MPs

Re: Hang on...

I joked with a friend before the announcement of the new pope that they'd hold conclave until the 1st of April and then announce the 1st Jesuit pope...

Re: Errrrrrrrrrrr

Problem is in this age is the rich don't actually do anything with thier money, it's sitting offshore doing nothing.

For example just have a look at how much wealth is owned by how many people here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billionaire (and these are presumabily based on published audited accounts, cough, cough).

Once upon in ye good olde days rich people like the Carnegie's actually FUNDED public libraries and the accoutrements required by industrialisation. Now it seems the requirements of a post industrial neo liberal economy are for a dumb, unconnected, closely monitored and passive population. Or is that just capitalism?

Steve Jobs' death clears way for Adobe CTO defection

Creative Cloud and CS6 is not very good. It's much slower than previous versions, has bugs and generally is less productive to work with than older versions of Creative Suite. Adobe have been really slack with help and documentation for the new "html 5 and javascript" technologies that not only do not have the performance of flash they take far longer and are far more costly to develop for. Fine if you are a big company, not so good for SME's and small studios as clients won't pay the costs to develop across endless different devices each with various quirks and differences in rendering "standards". Canvas is not as good as flash for rich media, audio features in HTML 5 and javascript are a joke.

In terms of web development there is still no replacement that is as featured or as widely circulated as flash. Maybe Apple have decided to put the baby back in the bath?

Aaron Swartz prosecutor accused of 'professional misconduct'

Re: Wow!

Guilty of what? Maybe Aron didn't want to be the next suckerberg/brin figurehead for the cowardly US "intel" establishment so they harrased the life out of the poor guy. A totally shameful and avoidable situation and another damning reason these spooks are not fit for purpose. The terrorists are alive and (un)well in cheltenham and langley.

Need an army of killer zombies? Yours for just $25 per 1,000 PCs

That is a seriously cheap render farm!

Sergey Brin emasculated after HORROR smartphone disaster

He got mixed up what he meant to say was:

The consumption based internet is dehumanizing.

Keyboard, you're not my type

Yes it's definetly too expensive if it's not in mass production. I would have thought it could be a lot cheaper if it was mass produced. Couldn't you also implement a similar idea but instead of using screens in each button you just have a single screen underneath the keys with lenses in each button to project the image, not much different to backlighted keyboards as they are.

What happened to the Optimus keyboard? http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/maximus/

I thought this was quite a good idea.

Mobile tech bods beg devs: C'mon, where's that KILLER app?

Re: Could be...

RFID/NFC vcards embedded into paper sheets for business cards and other printed materials. Very suprised it's not been done yet. I suggested this to some paper mills a few years ago t seeing as they were losing loads of money because no one wanted paper any more.

$50 per card is a bit too much though. get it down to less than 30c a card and you could make a decent profit. Alas I'm in no position to persue any good ideas I might have. You need money to make money.

Jimmy Wales: 'I'm Wikipedia's monarch'

Re: A simple direct question answered truthfully proves that it be so and not a fantasy?

is that site for real? It looks really made up.

Re: A simple direct question answered truthfully proves that it be so and not a fantasy?

That sounds absolutely crazy. For its time.

Some aspects still do sound crazy (broadcasting) but not the surveillance stuff, a lot of people have got smart phones now and tailored content and IMEI and IP addresses, and local storage, keystone.agent etc.

Anonymous leaks 'Bank of America secrets' in spy revenge hack

Re: "hosted in Israel"

Far more likely that whatever this is has been released by the US government and the Israel leak herring is to lay the blame elsewhere. I thought anonymous were part of the US Air Force?

It's the Peer 2.0: Martha Lane Fox now a crossbench baroness

"I don't think you can be a proper citizen in our society in the future if you're not online."

I don't think you can have a proper society if it is all online.

Nokia wants to build the Google of human behaviour - and share it

Has the plan changed now to push Nokia as the gatekeeper of spyware? What with Google et all not trusted enough to be used. Is this the new jobs/zuckerberg/gates?

Directgov kids' site apes explosive gay porn brand

you'd think...

the first thing you do when creating any new web site is to perform a quick google search to check that:

1. No one already has the domain name registered

2. There's no sites with a similar name that might lead people to the wrong domain

3. There's preferably no results that show up alongside your site in the first page of results that offer pro[n]/Copyright infringement/incitement to violence/etc

I'd think the only way they could have made this gaff is if the people doing this basic due diligence are sitting behind a web filter when doing the above google search, and resulting SEO. That is seriously the only plausable way this could have happened when you are talking this much in development costs and who's money is paying for it.

Are the government departments allowed to have anyone working on projects with web filter stuff turned off to avoid things like this happening?